


renewed family

by Murf1307



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Family Reunions, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 11:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: Kanan is old enough to search for her father, and she won't let anything stop her





	renewed family

__

"You know Father's miserable without my dad," Kanan snipes.  "And I know you can hear Dad, too, because we all hear everything."   
  
" _ Fu qin _ does not want to change the state of things," Shuko says, trying to be patient.  "He did what was necessary." Even — or especially — when it hurt.  _ Fu qin _ is a master of restraint, and pushing away Father was just an example of that.   
  
"Bullshit!  We're a family, and that means we stick together." Kanan paced their room.  "It's bad enough that Chris has an extra family that he went back to! We don't have anyone but Father and Dad, and you know it.  They shouldn't be apart. Dad's been chasing him for five years, and that should matter."   
  
"Please don't fight," Junrei interrupts.  "Papa hates it when you fight. It reminds him of Daddy." She's still a child; it's taking her longer to grow up than it's taking Kanan.   
  
Shuko sighs.  "Kanan's plan is reckless and will upset  _ fu qin _ ."   
  
"He's already upset!  He's heartbroken, and everyone knows it!  I even overheard Totetsu talking to Pon-chan about it, and they would know.”  Kanan crosses her arms.   
  
Shuko uncrosses them.  “If we do this,” she says, “We’ll need their help.  And a human form that won’t draw attention.”   
  
Junrei and Kanan both smiled widely.  Shuko was the responsible one, but in the end, she would always be a little bit weak for her little sisters.   
  


* * *

  
  
The human form they chose was about fifteen years old.  She looked older, though, when Shuko was in control, and younger when Junrei was, just from the way they spoke and moved.   
  
Kanan loved this form.  Stretching her new fingers, she led the way as they escaped the shop; three of the big cats were willing to create a beautiful distraction for them, and Tetsu had gotten them the documents and money they might need in travelling.   
  
Kanan grinned as she thought about the name on the passport Tetsu had given them.  Honlon D. Orcot.    
  
In this form, to this world, she got to be her fathers' daughters in a way that could be  _ seen _ .     
  
_ You've never been so happy _ , Junrei says, in their heads, and her quiet joy joins up with Kanan's.  Shuko can't help be feel it, too.  _ Soon _ , they all thought.  Soon, their family would be complete again.   


 

* * *

  
  
Leon is in Rome, wandering the city, when someone practically tackles him.  He almost falls over but catches himself, trying to figure out who is hugging him so tightly and so suddenly.   
  
He pulls away and sees that it’s a young, Asian teenage girl with one blue eye and one gold eye, and black, shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail.  She’s grinning at him widely, and he’s not sure what to say; she looks too much like D, he thinks, but he’s pretty sure he’s met all of D’s family.   
  
He  _ thinks _ .   
  
The girl’s smile falters.  “Dad?”   
  
“I am definitely not old enough to be your dad, kid,” he says, unnerved.   
  
She rolls her eyes.  “Come on. You know exactly who I am.”  Her expression shifts. “I’m sorry,” she says, and her expression is pure D.  “Kanan is just excited to have found you.”   
  
Oh,  _ shit _ .   
  
“You’re — from Christmas, seven years ago.”  The three-headed dragon, who apparently has a human form.  Because of course she does.   
  
“Duh,” the girl says, her facial expression dropping back to the way she looked before.  “We’re Honlon. I’m Kanan, that was Shuko, and Junrei’s a little shy so she probably won’t say hi for a little while.”   
  
This is  _ insane _ .   
  
“So — Is D...?”   
  
Another shift, and he thinks it’s Shuko speaking now.  “ _ Fu qin _ doesn’t know we’re here.  We...left without permission.”   
  
“Well, shit.”  He steps toward the kid.  “So, you came looking for me?”   
  
“Yes.  Kanan could sense you searching.  We believe  _ fu qin _ has made a mistake to run from you for so long.”   
  
Well, he supposed that if she was a dragon, she could probably do that.  He takes a deep breath, still more than a little stunned by the girl’s (girls’, maybe?) sudden appearance.  “So, you came to, what, bring me to him?”   
  
Shift to Kanan.  “Yeah. Father is miserable without you.  He just won’t admit it.”   
  
“Okay.”  His chest aches at the idea of it.  “Okay, so. Where is he?”   
  
“Tokyo.”  He’s not sure who said it, but it’s Shuko who continues.  “Though, in this form, we need to take human transportation to get there.”     
  
The disdain in her tone is so reminiscent of D that he can’t help but laugh.   
  
Kanan grins, too.  “Yeah, well. That just gives us time to hang out.” She pauses.  “Oh, and Jun wants to know how Chris is doing.”   
  
“I don’t know.  I...” Leon sighs.  “I haven’t spoken to anybody since I left.”   
  
The look on her face turns immediately furious.  “You  _ what _ ?!”  She stalks up to him, glaring up at him from too close.  “You  _ abandoned _ him?  Great, screw you, now Junrei’s crying and too sad to even show you that she is.”   
  
Shuko takes over and steps back.  “I’m sorry, Kanan and Junrei are very...emotional.”  She offers him her hand. “It will pass.”   
  
“ _ Fuck _ that,” Kanan says, interrupting, and snatches her hand back.  “You can’t be nice to him about this.” Her hands are determined fists at her sides, her posture stiff and angry.  “You went searching for Father but abandoned Chris, you  _ hypocrite _ !”   
  
Leon swallows.  “Yeah. I know.”  He exhales. “Look, I — we probably shouldn’t be having this talk in public.  People are gonna start staring.”   
  
Shuko now.  “I agree. Do you have a hotel room?”   
  
“Not yet, I just got here.”    
  
“Then finding a hotel room is probably our first priority,” Shuko says, and it sounds more like she’s talking to herself — herselves? — than to him.   
  
This is without question the strangest thing that’s happened to him in five years.   
  
Funny, how much it makes him feel at  _ home _ .   


 

* * *

  
  
Once they have a hotel room, Honlon ducks into the bathroom.  Shuko grips the edge of the sink, snarling just a little. “Kanan, stop.  You’re not helping.”   
  
“You heard him!  He abandoned Chris, just like Father abandoned him.”  Kanan whirls around, her fingernails tearing into one of the towels on the towel bar.  “Frankly, I wish we hadn’t come. They’re both awful.”   
  
_ Please stop _ , Junrei thinks, and tears prick at the corner of their eyes.   _ We should be nicer to each other. _   
  
From outside, Leon says to them, "You girls okay in there?"   
  
The fact that he so easily adapts to there being three of them strikes Shuko with a sense of joy she cannot quite place.  Kanan snickers at her sister, because she never had any doubt. Dad was definitely an asshole, but this stuff? This stuff he was good at.   
  
"We're fine!" Kanan insists, and that's that -- for now, her rage has subsided.  She opens the door.    
  
"We apologize," Shuko says, tipping her head in acknowledgment.   
  
Kanan shakes her head.  "I'm still mad at you, but it's whatever for now.  But you gotta tell Chris that you found us. Jun's gonna be upset if you don't."   
  
Junrei pushes to the front.  "Kanan's right," she admits, biting her lip.  "I miss Chris a lot."   
  
Leon nods.  "Okay. Uh. Once we get to Tokyo, yeah, we'll do that."   
  
Junrei pouts a little.  "Okay," she says, but she's clearly not happy about it.   
  
_ I'll convince him _ ,  _ Junrei _ , Kanan says in their heads.   _ I promise _ .   
  
Shuko moves to the front then.  "Thank you for believing us," she says.  "By human standards, we must seem quite...impossible."   
  
"Yeah, but so was D."  Leon tips up the corner of his mouth.  "So you're the one that came from him?"   
  
"Yes.  I, Shuko, was the first to come to be.  I was kept safe by  _ fu qin _ and his family for sixty years before the night that we three were born."   
  
"And I'm Kanan, and I'm your fault," Kanan says, dryly.  "And Jun came from the little boy we almost hatched for. So I guess I'm  _ technically _ the youngest."   
  
“By minutes,” Shuko reminds her.  “You’re essentially twins.”   
  
Kanan rolls her eyes.  “Yeah, I guess.”   
  
Their attention is drawn out of themselves by a quiet chuckle from Leon, who is watching them and shaking his head.   
  
“Wow,” he says, but he already sounds fond.  “You three must be holy terrors.”   
  
“Kanan is,” says Junrei, biting her lip.  “She and Shuko like to fight and it upsets Papa sometimes.”     
  
Shuko shakes her head.  “It’s not that we like to fight, it’s simply in our natures, Junrei.  Kanan is very easily moved to anger, and not often inclined to good sense.”   
  
“So, like Dad, basically.”  Kanan rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”   
  
Shuko chuckles, but doesn’t push.  Instead, she looks at Leon, who is watching them in something akin to wonder.  She smiles at him. "Have you been looking for  _ fu qin _ all this time?" she asks.  She thinks he must have been, but it's polite to ask.   
  
"Yeah," he says, nodding, flushing a little.  "He, uh -- he left something, when you all went away."   
  
Kanan frowns a little, her eyebrows furrowing.  "What'd he leave?"   
  
"Lemme show you," Leon says, though his voice has gone a little quiet, a little pensive.  He pulls something out of his pocket -- a sheet of paper in a sandwich bag, carefully folded but not creased.     
  
On the paper is a crayon drawing of Count D, Leon, Chris, Pon, Q-chan, and Tetsu.     
  
"Oh," Junrei says, softly, her face crumpling just a little.  "Of course Papa tried to leave that behind," she says, softly.   
  
Leon swallows.  "Yeah, but I'm bringing it back to him.  He doesn't  _ get _ to run away from this anymore."  He takes a breath. "You know what?  Maybe we should get something to eat, and then call Chris.  What do you think?"   
  
Junrei's watery smile should be answer enough.   


 

* * *

 

It takes two weeks for the four of them to get to Tokyo.  They keep stopping for a few hours or a night in towns and cities, visiting ice cream shops and museums -- and all the while, the girls learn a little more about Leon.   
  
Shuko notices that he's steadier, now, as if he's more comfortable.  She thinks that could be the intervening years, though Kanan and Junrei don't really consider it important enough to think about.  They are, after all, only children. She smiles a little smile and watches Leon waiting for their final hired-car ride to Neo-Chinatown.     
  
_ Father's gonna flip his shit,  _ Kanan says in their head, and the smile turns a little smirkish as a result.     
  
_ I assume they will fight, _ Shuko agrees, and really, in their family, is that not often an expression of love?  She and Kanan, after all, do not hate each other; they couldn't, not truly.    
  


The car arrives.  Junrei reaches out and takes Leon's hand.  He smiles at the three of them.   
  
That smile he gives them is small, but full of wonder, and his hand curled around theirs is warm and steady.  Time has steadied him, Shuko thinks, and he learned much from having Chris in their lives.   
  
_ Family _ , she thinks, absently.   
  
_ Fu qin _ 's family had not been this steady, this dependable.  Something to be said for Father, then, that he has become so.   
  
"You girls sure he's gonna be happy to see me?" Leon asks them.   
  
Kanan responds.  "He's probably gonna yell at you, but yeah, he definitely will.  He misses you, and everybody knows it."

He snorts, just a little, but Shuko thinks he believes her, just for the moment.

* * *

 

It’s wild, and it’s crazy to think it, but he can  _ tell _ when they find the right building.  He still can’t read hiragana or kanji, but he  _ knows  _ when they’re there.  Shuko thanks the driver, and the four of them head out onto the sidewalk.

Junrei squeezes his hand again, her voice a little wet.  “He’s gonna be happy, once he knows you’re staying.”

To some degree, it's a little hard to believe her.  

She’s just a kid, and shit, he and D have always fought like cats and dogs, and he’s not sure why D ever wanted him around in the first place —

“Breathe,” Shuko murmurs to him, and that’s all he needs.

They go inside, walking until they find an elevator.  When they get up to the right floor, Leon smells hints of the shop’s incense, and his stomach drops at the familiarity.

It almost feels impolite to walk through the open doors of the shop, with no preamble, no announcement, Honlon walking beside him.  Anticlimactic, almost, and he swallows, looking around the front room of the shop.

He realizes, abruptly, that he can see all the pets’ human shapes, but he can still tell what animals they represent, somehow.

But he only has a moment to spare that thought, because in the next, D walks out from one of the doors to the back of the shop.  He looks precisely as he did five years ago, pale, slender, and perfect.

If you could die just from yearning, Leon would have been a dead man years ago.

D’s eyes widen, darting from him to Honlon.  His mouth opens, as if to say something, then closes again as he strides over to them, his face twisting with a feeling Leon can’t quite parse out —

And he grabs Honlon by her ear, shouting, “The three of you are  _ grounded! _  You cannot just sneak out whenever you please!  You are a  _ King Gidora dragon _ !”

Leon can't help but laugh.  “Holy shit, are you literally grounding our kids?”

It’s not what he planned to say, for sure, when he found D, but then, up until a little while ago, he didn’t realize they even  _ had _ kids.

D freezes when he laughs, and his hand drops from Honlon’s ear.  “Mister Detective.”

“I’m not -- I’ve been off the force for five years,” Leon swallows.  “You’re a hard man to find, y’know.”

Honlon uses the opportunity to slip past D, making a break for the back of the shop.  Leon only barely notices the girls leave; his eyes are glued to D, because  _ shit _ .  It’s been five  _ fucking  _ years.

D seems to struggle for words, and Leon’s not quite sure why.

“...Leon, then,” D finally says, and his voice is small when he says Leon’s name.  

“Yeah, that works,” he says, taking a step toward D.  “How’ve you been? The girls said you missed me?”

D takes a breath, blinking at him for a moment.  “...I never intended for you to know.”

He shrugs.  “We got smart kids,” he says, and it doesn't feel nearly as weird to talk about them having kids, now.  “They knew I was looking, and came and found me.”

“And you...aren't alarmed?”

“Not really.” Carefully, he reaches out to D, taking his hand in his own.  “Maybe I would've been five years ago, but not now.”

D flinches when Leon touches him, but Leon presses onward.  “I’ve had a lot of time to think, D. About what I want. About what I think you might want, if you let yourself.”

D exhales.  “Leon -- you know it’s not that, not that simple.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Leon squeezes D’s hand, just a little.  “You don’t have to be like your dad, or your grandpa. You proved that the whole time I knew you.”  He takes a breath. “If you want me, please, just say it. I’ll stay. You know I will.”

D is shaking.  He blinks, and Leon can see his eyes going glassy with tears.  “Do you really mean that? After everything?”

“Shit, D, I love you.  You gotta know that.”

D’s free hand comes up to his mouth and his face crumples, breaking down in tears.  It tears at Leon’s heart, and he pulls D close, wrapping his arms around him. “D, it’s okay.  It’s okay.”

“You love me,” D manages wetly.  “You  _ love _ me, after everything you’ve seen.”

“Yeah.  I mean, I’ve been chasing you for five years, D.  Pretty sure you have to love somebody to search that long.”  He rubs D’s back. “You okay with that?”

“My dear, dear Leon,” D says, on the edge of sobbing.  “I — I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let you go.”

It’s exactly what Leon needs to hear.  Finally, the world opens up, the weight on his shoulders lifts, and he can’t help but grin.  

He’s finally fucking home.

* * *

 

Behind the big oaken doors, peering through a little crack, Honlon, Tetsu-chan, and Pon-chan watch the reunion.

“I told you it was a good idea,” Pon says, pinching Tetsu’s side.

“I still want to eat him,” Tetsu retorts.

Junrei giggles.  “Be nice,” she chides.  “We’re a lot bigger than you, T-chan.  If you eat Daddy, I might let Kanan eat you up.”

Kanan smirks widely, and Tetsu rolls his eyes.


End file.
